NCLEX exam this Monday

Gentle readers,

I have not forgotten you, nor have I failed the NCLEX exam. Yet. The orientation process at work has been so stressful and so literally tiring that I simply gave up blogging and reading my GoogleReader for the time being. At work, they tell me I'm doing well, but it doesn't feel that way. I have yet to go through a day and finish everything satisfactorily.

Also, I have made some mistakes. My worst has been with a patient who was playing games with us on a day when I didn't have time for it, and starting spitting out oral meds, then refusing everything. I eventually got the patient to agree to take crushed the very needed pills at the end of my shift and crushed some extended release pills without thinking about it. Luckily, no advserse results, but you know that was one of the days when I did not feel good after work.

Actually, for a period of about 3 weeks, I started drinking every day and probably drank more in that period than the entire year previous. Not good.

I'm sure most new nurses have the same feelings of inadequacy I do, but it has been very rough.

Anyhow, I am scheduled to take the NCLEX this Monday at the Pearson VUE office. I'm planning on holing up for a while--maybe calling in tomorrow and Friday (Do I dare?) and spending those days and the weekend in a motel or bed and breakfast. So far, I have studied about a total of 4 hours. I do not have high hopes. I find it almost impossible to combine the stressful floor orientation and the book studying, so heinous is the book studying to me. I don't know about other people, but I measure out my time in spoonfuls of anxiety, not spoonfuls of chronology. I have had very little time to study in other words. I have spent some time staring out the window, doing laundry, cleaning the house...

Anyhow, if I don't pass, I'll have to stop orientation and then I'll be back in the situation I wanted originally, which was to pass the exam before taking a job. I mentioned this to the HR department at work when I went in, but they wouldn't give me a position unless I started orientation right away. Well, they got their way, and now we'll see how things go.

series

A series is a collection of related posts, sort of like a series of articles in a newspaper. It may be ongoing, or a short collection of only a few posts. When you click on a link, posts will appear in reverse-chronological order, so you need to go to the beginning if something doesn't make sense.

Books for Nurses : reviews of "extracurricular" reading I think would be good for nurses and other health care workers. These should improve understanding of medicine and health care, help improve job skills, or change the way you think about health issues. For a complete listing of media reviews, see the library tag.

The Sexy Nurse Report : series of posts juxtaposing the silly sexual images of nurses produced in the media with the unsexy reality of nursing work...

ResearchBlogging : series of posts focusing on scientific research that are cross-posted at the ResearchBlogging.org website. Also see my profile there.

Orientation & 1st Year of Nursing : series of posts relating to my entry into the nursing profession after nursing school: NCLEX exam, hospital orientation, newbe experiences on the job...

Nursing School : series of posts documenting my experience in nursing school. Most of the several hundred posts I have up are from while I was in nursing school, but this series are the ones that I wrote specifically about school while I was a student nurse.